1. Paul's Groaning Creation in Biblical Imagery

The subjection of creation to futility and the pain of women in childbirth were closely connected and deeply ingrained in the scriptural traditions inherited by Paul and his contemporary Jews.Footnote ² God's punishment of Adam and Eve in the Garden sets the stage for these ongoing themes: ‘and to the woman God said, “I shall surely multiply your griefs and your groaning; with griefs you shall give birth to children”’ (καὶ τῇ γυναικὶ εἶπεν Πληθύνων πληθυνῶ τὰς λύπας σου καὶ τὸν στεναγμόν σου, ἐν λύπαις τέξῃ τέκνα, Gen 3.16).Footnote ³ This is followed by a parallel punishment for Adam: ‘the earth is cursed in your labours; with griefs you shall eat from it for all the days of your life’ (ἐπικατάρατος ἡ γῆ ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις σου· ἐν λύπαις φάγῃ αὐτὴν πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ζωῆς σου, 3.17). It is a natural shift, then, in describing the plight of the world under evil, to transfer Eve's ‘groaning’ in childbirth (στεναγμόν σου) to the earth, a move which clearly underlies Paul's language in Rom 8.22, with κτίσις substituted for γῆ (ἡ κτίσις συστενάζει καὶ συνωδίνει).Footnote ⁴ In Genesis, however, there is no explicit indication of the earth itself as a birthing mother, although this is potentially implied by 2.7, where God made the first human as ‘dirt from the earth’ (χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς).Footnote ⁵ Psalm 139 hints at this identification with greater clarity: God's activity of individualised creation is said to occur ‘from my mother's womb’ (ἐκ γαστρὸς μητρός μου), and, at the same time, ‘in the deepest recesses of the earth’ (ἐν τοῖς κατωτάτοις τῆς γῆς, LXX 138.13, 15; see also Job 1.21; Sir 40.1).

In prophetic and subsequently apocalyptic literature, labour pains are commonly applied to the context of present sufferings together with future hopes, a theme which persists into the New Testament: Jesus speaks of the ‘beginning of birth pangs’ (ἀρχὴ ὠδίνων, Mark 13.8 and par.), and Paul compares the coming destruction to ‘labour pain upon a pregnant woman’ (ἡ ὠδὶν τῇ ἐν γαστρὶ ἐχούσῃ, 1 Thess 5.3; cf. Rev 12.1–6). The so-called Isaiah Apocalypse (chs. 24–7) finds especially salient resonances in Romans 8.Footnote ⁶ Throughout Isaiah 24, Earth (ארץ/γῆ) is personified, and her desolation is depicted with graphic detail; her experiences are compared, for example, to a staggering drunkard (24.20). Yet hope remains: the people of Judah are described ‘as a woman in labour pain [who] comes near to giving birth and cries out at her birth pang’ (ὡς ἡ ὠδίνουσα ἐγγίζει τοῦ τεκεῖν καὶ ἐπὶ τῇ ὠδῖνι αὐτῆς ἐκέκραξεν, 26.17). This temporary agony would finally give way to resurrection, in which those in the tombs (οἱ ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις) and in the earth (οἱ ἐν τῇ γῇ) would rise and rejoice (26.19).Footnote ⁷ Later in the Book of Isaiah, Zion is similarly personified: ‘a woman in labour gave birth’ (τὴν ὠδίνουσαν τεκεῖν, 66.7). Miraculously, prior to reaching full term, ‘Zion labours and delivers her children’ (ὤδινεν καὶ ἔτεκεν Σιων τὰ παιδία αὐτῆς, 66.8; see also Jer 4.31).Footnote ⁸ This conceptual imagery is developed yet further in 4 Ezra, a text postdating Paul (late first century ce): the underworld is likened to a womb that will, in the end, give back those who have died (4.40–2; see also 5.46–56; 7.116; 10.9–10).Footnote ⁹

It is clear, therefore, that within the biblical tradition there would have been a rich and varied repertoire of images available to Paul and his audience that would give meaning to Romans 8.19–23. The earth is in some sense the origin of all human life (as in Gen 2.7; Ps 139.15), and it could be variously personified as suffering and mourning. In view of Gen 3.16–17, where Eve's pain in childbirth and the futility of the earth are parallel consequences of human disobedience to God's law, it follows naturally that the earth's plight should be described as that of a woman in labour, particularly as a symbol for eschatological hope culminating in new life. The biblical passages surveyed above, however, fall short of explicitly depicting earth (or creation) as a mother whose labour would conclude with the deliverance of God's children. On the one hand, human sufferings are likened to labour pain (e.g. Isa 26.17; cf. Hos 13.13; Mic 4.9–10; Mark 13.8; 1 Thess 5.3); and, on the other, Zion is a mother to God's children (Isa 66.7–8). It is only at the end of the first century ce in 4 Ezra that one finds unambiguous portrayals of earth itself as a birthing mother.Footnote ¹⁰ Consequently, it is reasonable to draw on a wider scope of comparanda in order to delineate more fully a contextual framework for Paul's metaphor.

2. Creation as Mother: From the Greek Gaia to the Roman Tellus/Terra Mater

In almost every modern interpretation of Romans 8.19–23, the intertextual background is exclusively confined to the Bible and Second Temple Judaism.Footnote ¹¹ This is, to be sure, an understandable interpretive procedure: throughout Romans, Paul engages explicitly in biblical exegesis, and these verses are likewise brimming with scriptural allusions. Moreover, this approach appropriately presupposes a commitment to the authority of scripture shared by Paul and his implied audience. At the same time, however, at least some among the audience will have been educated in Greek literature and culture, and all of them lived in Rome with its ubiquitous religious symbols and practices.Footnote ¹² Thus Paul's groaning creation would have potentially evoked numerous other texts and images. For instance, in his use of verbs (συστενάζει καὶ συνωδίνει, 8.22), an educated Greek might have been reminded of a similar collocation in Homer's Odyssey. In response to having his eye gouged, the poet describes the ‘Cyclops groaning and labouring in pain’ (Κύκλωψ δὲ στενάχων τε καὶ ὠδίνων ὀδύνῃσι, Od. 9.415). Of course, the context of Paul's metaphor shares little in common with this mythological scene, and, as I argue below, it is Hesiod rather than Homer that provides the clearest epic analogues. Nevertheless, this verbal resonance with epic poetry foregrounds the potential for a wider range of salient intertexts.

From early on in Greek religion and mythology, Earth (Gaia or Ge) was viewed as a divine figure. She often receives prayers and sacrifices, is called on in oaths, and addressed with the epithet ‘mother’.Footnote ¹³ In Hesiod's Theogony, Gaia plays a pivotal role in the origin of the cosmos and in giving birth to numerous divine children.Footnote ¹⁴ Following an extensive proem, Hesiod begins his account with the famous lines:

Gaia gives birth parthenogenically to Ouranos, who would become her partner, and next to the mountains and the sea (126–32). Subsequently, her role as mother shifts: now, through intercourse with Ouranos, she produces the generation of divine offspring who come to be known as Titans (132–9), of whom the youngest was ‘crooked-minded Kronos, most dreadful of children’ (Κρόνος ἀγκυλομήτης, δεινότατος παίδων, 137–8). Ouranos despises these from birth, so that

This would not be the last occasion in the Theogony that Gaia groans from agony: later, in the battle between Zeus and Typhon, as the monster crashes down upon her, ‘enormous Gaia groaned’ (στονάχιζε δὲ γαῖα πελώρη, 858; also 843).Footnote ¹⁵ In lines 159–60, however, her groaning results from the concealment within herself of her children, whom she most eagerly desires to be released from their imprisonment. To achieve this, she hatches a plot, which Kronos carries out, resulting in the castration of Ouranos and the deliverance of the divine brood (161–210).

In the next generation, the cycle repeats itself. Kronos prevents his and Rhea's children from seeing the light of day by swallowing them himself directly as they are born (459–60). Grieved by her loss, Rhea calls on Gaia and Ouranos for assistance (467–73). In response, Gaia receives Rhea's youngest child Zeus on Crete (479–80), where she rears him and conceals the god in a cave, ‘under the hidden places of sacred Gaia’ (ζαθέης ὑπὸ κεύθεσι γαίης, 483). Once again, Gaia enacts a plan to release the divine children from bondage – Kronos is presented with a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallows and consequently vomits up his offspring. Thus, throughout the Theogony Gaia plays an instrumental role in bringing forth the children of gods: first, she conceives and gives birth to her own offspring and schemes to have them freed from captivity within herself, and later she acts similarly on behalf of Rhea's children. Hesiod's other poem, the Works and Days, concerns a very different topic, and consequently Gaia is not given a prominent role. In one myth, however – the Five Ages (Op. 106–201) – she is once again responsible for concealing individuals within herself, this time mortals rather than gods. At the conclusion of each of the first three generations Hesiod repeats, ‘Gaia covered over this generation’ (τοῦτο γένος κατὰ Γαῖα κάλυψε, 121, 140, 156).

While Hesiod's depiction of divine and cosmic origins enjoyed widespread popularity and influence throughout antiquity, it did not do so without contestation.Footnote ¹⁶ Philosophers registered their dissatisfaction with the gods of both Hesiod and Homer (e.g. Xenophanes (B11 DK)). Perhaps the sharpest and most lasting attack was levelled by Plato.Footnote ¹⁷ He famously charged Hesiod with having spoken ‘the greatest lie concerning the greatest matters’ (τὸ μέγιστον καὶ περὶ τῶν μεγίστων ψεῦδος, Resp. 377e), in attributing such familial violence to Ouranos, Kronos and Zeus.Footnote ¹⁸ At the same time, Hesiod's positioning of four apparently ungenerated entities at the origin of the cosmos – Chaos, Gaia, Tartaros and Eros – became a frequent starting point in subsequent metaphysical formulations, even among those who disputed the myth, and his divine personalities were readily reimagined as inanimate elements of nature.Footnote ¹⁹ Moreover, Gaia's divine individuality is commonly subsumed under the various fertility goddesses with whom she is identified.Footnote ²⁰ In Hellenistic philosophy, as the trajectory of demythologising cosmic origins advanced, the place of Gaia's decisive agency in establishing Zeus as king among gods recedes. Thus, for example, in Stoicism Zeus can retain many of his mythological attributes, but there is scarcely room for Hesiod's succession myth as background to his absolute sovereignty.Footnote ²¹

Similar trends are also evident in Roman poetry. Ovid's Metamorphoses imitates Hesiod at several points, and, indeed, the opening lines position his own poetic account of cosmic origins in direct conversation with the Theogony (Met. 1.5–9): in a primordial time before sea, lands and sky had emerged, there existed a condition ‘that they have called Chaos’ (quem dixere chaos, 7).Footnote ²² Yet, although this clear allusion to Hesiod (Theog. 116) prompts an expectation for an account of divine origins akin to that of the Theogony, the Metamorphoses lacks a succession myth, and consequently there remains little role for Earth (Tellus/Terra) as mother of the gods (but see 1.156–60; 2.272–300; 15.91–2).Footnote ²³

Nevertheless, even in the context of these intellectual and literary developments, an interest in Earth as mother persist, even if only metaphorically. In an oft-quoted fragment, Euripides describes Gaia as the mother of humans, food and animals:

The first seven lines of this fragment were preserved by Sextus Empiricus (Math. 6.17), who cites them as evidence for the benefits of music. Lucretius adapts the entire fragment to Latin, depicting Sky and Earth as parents common to all humanity:

After a summary of Earth's bountiful provisions, Lucretius adds, again following Euripides, ‘for this reason on her own merit she has acquired the maternal name’ (qua propter merito maternum nomen adepta est, 998; cf. TrGF 5.839.6–7). The same Euripidean lines are quoted with approval by Vitruvius via a Latin translation (8 praef. 1).Footnote ²⁵ For him, they are evidence that Euripides was a student of Anaxagoras, and thus a ‘philosopher of the stage’ (philosophus scaenicus), and in the context of his argument they support his claims regarding the necessity of the four elements – air, fire, water and earth – for all life.Footnote ²⁶ Thus, even within a scientific perspective it remained possible to speak of Earth as mother. Pliny the Elder, for instance, writes that earth (terra) is the one natural element to which, ‘because of its merits, we imparted the epithet of maternal reverence. As the sky is to god, so she is to humans, she who receives us when we are born, and once born nourishes us’ (propter merita cognomen indidimus maternae venerationis. sic hominum illa ut caelum dei, quae nos nascentes excipit, natos alit). Moreover, after we are dead, she ‘embraces us in her bosom and covers us as a mother’ (conplexa gremio … ut mater operiens, Nat. 2.63.154).Footnote ²⁷ Heraclitus likewise characterises the earth's production of vegetation as childbirth, describing spring as a time ‘when out of the winter frosts the barren and closed earth reveals the impregnated labour pains within’ (ἐπειδὰν ἐκ τῶν χειμερίων παγετῶν ἡ στερίφη καὶ μεμυκυῖα γῆ τὰς κυοφορουμένας ἔνδον ὠδῖνας ἐκφήνῃ, All. 39.14).Footnote ²⁸

Ongoing interest in Hesiod's cosmic origins and the maternal nature of earth was not limited to ‘pagan’ Greek and Roman writers. Philo of Alexandria engages closely with these issues, and relates them to his view of the biblical account of creation. In On the Eternity of the World, he delineates three distinct views of the cosmos: (1) that it was generated and would be destroyed (Stoics); (2) that it was ungenerated and would not be destroyed (Aristotle); and (3) that it was generated and would not be destroyed (Plato).Footnote ²⁹ He adopts the third of these, which, he argues, could be derived from both Plato's Timaeus and Genesis. Because the intended audience of this treatise was apparently non-Jewish, Philo draws on a wide spectrum of authors representing the three views in question. At an important juncture in his argument, he introduces two well-known verses of Hesiod:

While Philo acknowledges that Hesiod's Chaos may be given an Aristotelian or Stoic reading, he asserts that ‘the cosmos disclosed by Hesiod is most manifestly a generated thing’ (τὸ γενητὸν εἶναι τὸν κόσμον ἐναργέστατα παρ’ Ἡσιόδῳ μεμήνυται), and adds, in this treatise's only explicit biblical reference, that Moses had affirmed the same thing much earlier (18–19).Footnote ³⁰

Whereas Eternity is a philosophical doxography, in On the Creation of the World Philo presents a detailed exegesis of Genesis.Footnote ³¹ At several points, he depicts the earth as a mother: ‘Indeed, God commands the earth to give birth to these things, but she, being extensively pregnant and in labour pain, gives birth to all of the things sown and all of the trees’ (ὁ μὲν δὴ προστάττει τῇ γῇ ταῦτα γεννῆσαι· ἡ δ’ ὥσπερ ἐκ πολλοῦ κυοφοροῦσα καὶ ὠδίνουσα τίκτει πάσας μὲν τὰς σπαρτῶν, πάσας δὲ τὰς δένδρων, 43; see also 38). As noted above, there is nothing in Genesis explicitly suggesting such a maternal role for the earth. Nevertheless, Philo argues that this is implied in Gen 2.6, which describes springs flowing from the earth and nourishing life. These are akin to a mother's breasts which prepare food in advance for children that are to be born (131–3).Footnote ³² To marshal support for this comparison, Philo turns to Greek rather than biblical sources. First, he cites a popular etymology: ‘Earth also is a mother, so it seems, wherefore also the first people determined to call her Demeter, combining the name of Meter and Ge’ (μήτηρ δ’ ὡς ἔοικε καὶ ἡ γῆ, παρὸ καὶ τοῖς πρώτοις ἔδοξεν αὐτὴν Δήμητραν καλέσαι τὸ μητρὸς καὶ γῆς ὄνομα συνθεῖσιν, 133).Footnote ³³ Then, he adds both Plato and the ‘race of poets’ as further advocates:

The poetic sources implied here by τὸ ποιητικὸν γένος are, to be sure, vague and unspecified. The epithet πανδώρα, for instance, could call to mind numerous literary passages.Footnote ³⁴ The loci classici of the myth of Pandora, however, are found in Hesiod (Theog. 561–616; Op. 60–105). There she is the first woman, in some sense equivalent to Eve, and thus mother of all humanity.Footnote ³⁵

In a very different context, Philo describes the divine punishments belonging to those who fail to observe the Sabbath, neither permitting their subjects to rest every seventh day nor leaving the earth fallow every seventh year (Praem. 153–61). Such treatment of fellow humans, Philo argues, fails to recognise that these are their brothers, for whom ‘common nature is a single mother’ (μία μήτηρ ἡ κοινὴ φύσις, 155). As a result of their abuse of the land, these inhabitants would be removed. Yet there is hope: although the offenders were cursed and expelled from the country (χώρα), again, ‘as a compassionate mother pities the sons and daughters whom she sent away … once more, after regaining her youth, she will prosper and give birth to an unassailable generation’ (οἷα μήτηρ φιλόστοργος οἰκτιεῖται μὲν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας οὓς ἀπέβαλεν … πάλιν δὲ νεάσασα εὐφορήσει καὶ τέξεται γενεὰν ἀνεπίληπτον). Thus, in an eschatological moment, the earth (or in this case the ‘country’, χώρα) would again take on a maternal role reminiscent of that of primordial Gaia in mythology (cf. Sib. Or. 3.744–51).

Philo's framing of an eschatological vision with imagery drawn from myths of cosmic origins is not unique to him. About a century later, in his celebration of Rome's imperial ascendency, Aelius Aristides would dispute Hesiod's pessimistic cosmos. Had the Boeotian poet been gifted with the same inspiration as Homer, he would not have placed the Golden Generation first.Footnote ³⁶ Or, minimally, ‘he would say that whenever your [Roman] administration and authority should be established, then the iron race would pass away on the earth’ (ἡνίκ’ ἂν ἡ ὑμετέρα προστασία τε καὶ ἀρχὴ καταστῇ, τότ’ ἂν φάναι φθαρῆναι τὸ σιδηροῦν φῦλον ἐν τῇ γῇ, Or. 26.106).Footnote ³⁷ Aristides’ political reading of Hesiod reflects a tradition of propaganda at least as old as the Augustan period, from which time the divine Earth Mother (Tellus or Terra Mater) figured prominently in imperial ideology.Footnote ³⁸ On the Ara Pacis, for example, a monument built between 13 and 9 bce marking a new era of peace established under Augustus, the so-called Tellus-relief, depicts a matron deity reclining with two babies reaching for her breasts, and surrounded with symbols of fertility and renewal: fruit, grains, nuts, a sheep and a cow. It remains unclear which deity is represented; the iconography is suggestive of the earth-goddess Tellus, but it also points to Venus, Ceres, and possibly also Italia or Pax.Footnote ³⁹ Nevertheless, the propaganda value of this and other related Augustan iconography is clear: the new political regime ushered in the golden age of prosperity and fecundity.Footnote ⁴⁰ Earth Mother figured elsewhere in civic cult. In the Saecular Games of 17 bce, Augustus himself sacrificed a pregnant sow to her (ILS 5050.134–7), and Horace's Carmen saeculare, composed for the same religious celebration, invokes Earth, among other gods and goddesses: ‘May Tellus, fertile in fruits and cattle, grant grain as the crown of Ceres; and may healthful waters and the winds of Jove nourish the produce’ (fertilis frugum pecorisque Tellus | spicea donet Cererem corona; | nutriant fetus et aquae salubres | et Iovis aurae, 29–32).Footnote ⁴¹ Thus, for Paul's Roman audience, the image of the earth as mother would have been much more than merely a relic of archaic mythology. It was, rather, a dynamic cultic and political symbol employed in imperial religious propaganda to emphasise the new age accomplished by Augustus.Footnote ⁴²